Your Genre Questions

Here's where you can get answers to your genre questions.

A lot of beginning writers seem to worry about genre, perhaps because genre can be a complex topic, but more likely because too many websites about writing say you should decide early on what genre you are writing in.

That's only partially true. On the one hand, if you know what type of book you want to write and who your readers are, it can help to consider their expectations.

On the other hand, it can be said that every truly original book is
its own genre. Many groundbreaking works of fiction combine genres or exist at the boundary between genres. For example, it is often said that science fiction is every genre, because every genre can be incorporated into science fiction. So we have SF westerns, SF mysteries, SF comedies, SF war stories, SF disaster stories, SF courtroom dramas, SF historicals (thank you, time travel), SF romances, etc. If you have a great idea for a story, but you're not certain what genre it is, don't agonize over it. You might just have an original idea.

That said, the biggest divide among readers seems to be between books considered mainstream or literary fiction and genre fiction.

Some would argue that the difference between the two is that
genre fiction tends to be more plot-oriented, while literary fiction is
more character-oriented, but these distinctions often break down on
close examination and are highly subjective.

For the most part, what distinguishes a genre is that there are
enough books with traits in common as to set them apart from the herd.
Those traits can be similar settings (e.g. historical, science fiction,
fantasy), audiences (children's books, young adult, chicklit), story
goals or themes (crime fiction, coming of age, thriller, romance),
styles (humour), etc.

Below we invite you to submit your genre questions and will try
to answer them. You can also read our answers to genre questions
submitted by other readers.

Have A Question About Genres Or Genre Fiction?

Submit your questions about particular genres or writing genre fiction in general here. If we feel we can provide an answer that will benefit other visitors and that the question has not already been addressed at length elsewhere on this site, we will post it. (We also invite you to comment on questions others have submitted.)

Your question and our answer will soon appear on a Web page. You can wrap a word in square brackets to make it appear bold. For example my story would show as my story on the Web page containing your story.

TIP: Try to be both brief and specific. Questions that are too general are harder to answer.

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